The Passenger from Calais eBook

I had not the smallest doubt when I realized with
whom I had to do that the unhappy mother had made
a desperate effort to redress her wrongs, as she thought
them, and had somehow contrived to carry off her baby
before she could be deprived of it.

I had met her in full flight upon the Engadine express.

What next? Was she to be overtaken and despoiled,
legally, of course, but still cruelly, separated from
her own flesh and blood? The Court might order
such an unnatural proceeding, but I was moved by every
chivalrous impulse to give her my unstinting and unhesitating
support to counteract it.

I was full of these thoughts, and still firmly resolved
to help Lady Blackadder, when l’Echelle, the
conductor whose services I still retained, sought
me out hurriedly, and told me that he believed the
others were on the point of leaving Brieg.

“I saw Falfani and milord poring over the pages
of the Indicateur, and heard the word Geneva
dropped in a whisper. I think they mean to take
the next train along the lake shore.”

“Not a doubt of it,” I assented; “so
will we. They must not be allowed to go beyond
our reach.”

When the 6.57 P.M. for Geneva was due out from Brieg,
we, l’Echelle and I, appeared on the platform,
and our intention to travel by it was made plain to
Lord Blackadder. The effect upon him was painfully
manifest at once. He chafed, he raged up and down,
grimacing and apostrophizing Falfani; once or twice
he approached me with clenched fists, and I really
thought would have struck me at last. Seeing
me enter the same carriage with him, with the obvious
intention of keeping him under my eye, he threw himself
back among the cushions and yielded himself with the
worst grace to the inevitable.

The railway journey was horribly slow, and it must
have been past 11 P.M. before we reached Geneva.
We alighted in the Cornavin station, and as they moved
at once towards the exit I followed. I expected
them to take a carriage and drive off, and was prepared
to give chase, when I found they started on foot,
evidently to some destination close at hand.
It proved to be the Cornavin Hotel, not a stone’s-throw
from the station.

They entered, and went straight to the bureau, where
the night clerk was at his desk. I heard them
ask for a person named Tiler, and without consulting
his books the clerk replied angrily:

“Tiler! Tiler! Ma foi, he is of
no account, your Tiler. He has gone off from
the dinner-table and without paying his bill.”

“That shall be made all right,” replied
Lord Blackadder loftily, as he detailed his name and
quality, before which the employe bowed low.
“And might I ask,” his lordship went on,
“whether a certain Mrs. Blair, a lady with her
child and its nurse, is staying in the hotel?”

“But certainly, milord. They have been
here some days. Salon and suite No. 17.”

“At any rate, that’s well, Falfani,”
said Lord Blackadder, with a sigh of satisfaction.
“But what of your friend Tiler? Thick-headed
dolt, unable to keep awake, I suppose.”